Irving v. Lipstadt

Transcripts

Yes, indeed, but I tried to bring this up and his Lord 1said, "We are not interested in whether this building has 2been faked after the war or not". 3Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Mr Irving, do you never answer an overt question? 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a total misrepresentation of what 5I said, but let us move on.. 6A.
[Mr Irving]
Well, I tried to bring up crematorium No. (i) in order to 7get the admission from the witness that it has been built 8in 1948 by the Poles and at this point your Lordship 9intervened, you will remember, and said, "This is of" ---- 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am not going to go through that again 11because the transcript is there, but let us get back to 12Almeyer. 13MR RAMPTON: We will just read on, and this is where Almeyer is 14a real killer for you revisionists, is it not, Mr Irving? 15A.
[Mr Irving]
I do not know. I will have to see what it says. 16Q.
[Mr Rampton]
"We were not allowed to come close and only the next day 17the bunker, gas chamber, was opened. The doctor told that 18the people died within half a minute to a minute. In the 19meantime, in Birkenhau, close to the burial sites, two 20empty houses were equipped by the construction office with 21gas chambers. One house had two chambers, the other 22four. These houses were designed as bunkers 1 and 2. 23Each chamber accommodated about 50 to 150 people. 24 "At the end of January or February, the first 25gassings were undertaken. The Commando was called "SK" 26and the camp commander had put it under the direct

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1authority of Untersturmfuhrer Grabner and was again led 2and brought into action by Hoessler". That is different 3from Hoess. "The area was surrounded by notices and 4marked as a security zone and, moreover, encircled by 5eight guardposts from the Commando. 6 "From that moment onwards the camp doctor sorted 7from the arriving transports immediately the inmates and 8those who were destined to be gassed. They had 9instructions to select for gassing those crippled by 10illness, those over 55 years of age who could not work and 11children up to 11 or 12 years". From a revisionist point 12of view, that is a catastrophic account, is it not? 13A.
[Mr Irving]
But I also draw attention to the frequent footnotes that 14Professor van Pelt has quite rightly written in saying 15this is wrong, that is wrong, the following is wrong, this 16is an incorrect account, the time was longer, the time was 17shorter. If one knows that, what kind of credence can you 18attach to a report like that? 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: In relation to the passage Mr Rampton has 20just read, is that not an accurate account of, I do not 21know, is it crematoria (iv) and (v), or (iii) and (iv)? 22MR RAMPTON: No. In that passage it is bunkers 1 and 2. 23A.
[Mr Irving]
It is talking about the bunkers 1 and 2, which we have not 24talked about and which, as far as I am concerned, actually 25existed. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: My question really is this. Is there

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1anything wrong with that as an account, so far as you see 2it? 3A.
[Mr Irving]
I see nothing wrong with that as an account, my Lord, but 4then, of course, as I have to keep reminding the court, 5I am not a Holocaust historian. I have never set myself 6up as a Holocaust historian. I have not written about the 7Holocaust in books or otherwise. All I know is that this 8is a flawed account, if I can use that word. Professor 9van Pelt himself describes it as being inaccurate in very 10many respects, and this is the kind of problems which 11would no doubt have been brought out, had I ever sat down 12and read the whole file and start comparing it with all 13the others. 14MR RAMPTON: Before suggesting that this flawed account, put 15into his mouth by the brutal British interrogators, was 16tortured out of him by Colonel Scotland? 17A.
[Mr Irving]
I am talking about the figures of course, both in the 18English letter and in the German letter, June 4th. I said 19it becomes more lurid with each subsequent version, first 20no gassings, then 50, then 15,000 in all. I suggest brute 21force by interrogators perhaps. 22Q.
[Mr Rampton]
So you are quite prepared to accept that these accounts, 23he goes on on a subsequent page to give an account of 24gassings of crematorium (ii) in Berkenhau? 25A.
[Mr Irving]
We have exactly same problem with Rudolf Hoess. We know 26Rudolf Hoess was badly manhandled and no doubt he richly

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1deserved it, but his account also became more lurid with 2each successive interrogation. 3Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Mr Irving, your answers are in danger of becoming 4characteristically inconsistent, if I may say so. You 5were worried that Colonel Scotland may have tortured these 6numbers, or threatened to do so, out of Almeyer, is that 7right? 8A.
[Mr Irving]
That is not actually what I said. I said his account 9becomes more lurid with each successive interrogation. 10That is all one can safely say, looking at them, on the 11basis of a first blush look at the entire file. 12Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Let us start again, Mr Irving. If this is a flawed 13account, and an obviously flawed account ---- 14A.
[Mr Irving]
In the opinion of your own expert witness. 15Q.
[Mr Rampton]
No. If you only have to compare it with the rest of the 16evidence. I know you have never done that, but it is, let 17me tell you, in certain respects unclear, confused and 18inaccurate. The guts of it, however, I put to you a 19moment ago, are dangerous to revisionists. If this 20account had been beaten or threatened out of this man by 21the brutal British interrogators, would you not think that 22they would have made it consistent with what else they 23knew? 24A.
[Mr Irving]
That is perhaps what they were doing. 25Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Would you not think ---- 26A.
[Mr Irving]
Perhaps that is why it is marginally consistent with other

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1accounts known at this time. By this time, you have to 2remember, they already knew quite a lot from other 3interrogations. 4Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Exactly. So they would have made Almeyer get it right. 5They have not only got all the details right, they would 6have got the numbers right, would they not, Mr Irving? 7A.
[Mr Irving]
What you mean? Put in 2.8 million or some ---- 8Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Whatever. But 15,000? That is pathetic, is it not? That 9is not a very good answer to a threat of torture or 10torture itself, is it? 11A.
[Mr Irving]
Maybe that was going to be in a later stage. Maybe there 12was going to be an interrogation 5 or 6 when he came to 13Nuremberg into the shadow of the gallows. This is a 14rather threadbare kind of argument. We do not know what 15stage they reached in their coercion. 16Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Mr Irving, you have made a suggestion in this letter to 17your chums in the revisionist movement to the effect that 18this man gave a fallacious account because he was tortured 19or threatened with torture by the Brits. You have 20absolutely no basis for that whatsoever. 21A.
[Mr Irving]
Mr Rampton, when the time comes to cross-examine your 22expert witnesses, I shall be putting to them documents 23which show very clearly what methods were used to extract 24information from witnesses, including some of the most 25brutal and horrifying descriptions of what happened to the 26witnesses in the Malmedy trial. I shall invite them to